Developing Future Food Safety Police With…Legos?

The mighty food safety bureaucrats are on a continual quest for some kind of safety from all of the lurking dangers that are apparently epidemic, and we need to be continually reminded that these dangers exist. Hence the invasion of food safety indoctrination into every aspect of our lives. A reader, Jon Crane, an eco-ag farmer in the northeast, tipped me off to the theme of the 2011 Lego championship: “Keeping Food Safe.”

In the 2011 Food Factor Challenge, over 200,000 9-16* year olds from over 55 countries will explore the topic of food safety and examine the possible points of contamination our food encounters – from exposure to insects and creatures, to unsterile processing and transportation, to unsanitary preparation and storage – then find ways to prevent or combat these contaminates. In the Food Factor Challenge, teams will build, test, and program an autonomous robot using LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT to solve a set of Food Safety missions as well as research, develop, and share their innovative food safety solutions.

So the youthful competitors will all be Superhero, FDA-like Feds, if just for the day, putting on their food safety caps and capes and rescuing America from the Contamination Gangstas who are assaulting and sullying the world’s food supply with their blatant disregard for our collective safety. More and more, we recognize that capitalist institutions – especially those outside of the sphere of the corporate state and government influence – are vilified under the pretense of “safety” because that word is something that helpless Americans can readily identify with, and apparently, take great comfort in its promises.

Reader Jon noted that one young man he knows conveyed the statement – “I thought Legos were supposed to be fun?” Not in a time and place where every issue, every concern, every misfortune, and every potential “bad” thing becomes an enormous government propaganda campaign to defend everyone from everything and everyone else.